Love, death, and submission: The role of the reader in Rumi's 'Masnavi'

This thesis uses Umberto Eco's concept of the Model Reader in order to analyze the textual strategies that Rumi's Masnavi utilizes to develop its ideal reader. Specifically it analyzes four strategically placed love stories in the Masnavi that come at the beginning, middle, and end of the six volume work, in order to illuminate what sort of Model Reader is created by the Masnavi's Model Author. Over the course of the analysis, it is shown that the Masnavi's Model Author uses a complex series of discursive, narrative, and actantial techniques in order to transform its Model Readers from naive readers who follow a reader-centered interpretive approach to understanding the Masnavi, to ideal readers who follow a text-centered approach. Ultimately, rather than envisioning the many and contradictory interpretations of the Masnavi as a problem, this thesis demonstrates that the wide range of interpretive possibilities for Rumi's poem is an anticipated response to, and essential result of, the Masnavi's textual strategy as an open work.